Feeds

This can’t be a coincidence can it?!? “Heaven” is the same place as part of “Two Streams” medical facility?!? “Missy” seems to be collecting people that died because of (or for) The Doctor, but why?

The second question is why here? This is clearly the same place and it’s not like they tried to disguise it (other than lots of flowers). How weird is that? This is the Two Streams health care facility where Amy Pond was stuck for 30+ years back in season 6 in episode 10 (The Girl Who Waited) and now they’re using it for Missy’s “Heaven”. It could a coincidence and they just thought no one would notice…

This can’t be a coincidence can it? “Heaven” is the same place as part of “Two Streams” medical facility?!? It’s pretty much the same camera angle (if I dug around more, I could probably find one even closer).

To be clear (just for the DW geeks): this is the time stream where older Amy shouldn’t exist any more (the place itself should still exist) but this image is probably from before younger (normal age) Amy was rescued, we assume the older Amy disappeared when the younger was rescued (re-writing time) but we don’t know for certain; she was captured and if the time being rewritten didn’t erase her then it’s likely she would have been killed with “kindness” (but could have been saved last minute). I’m not saying this has anything to do with Amy (it’s more likely an evil alternate version of Clara!), it’d be a stretch that this could be her evil child that somehow grew up in the facility; not likely, as this was post Melody being born and she couldn’t have more kids, but she was in a medical facility…

So The Flash is coming to television this fall on The CW. The effects look great and I like the guy who plays him but I think I’m going to dislike the show…

Why do I think I won’t like it? Because of the same reason I didn’t like (but watched anyways) Smallville. The Flash got his powers because of an explosion at S.T.A.R. labs and I think that’s where we’re going to have all the villains powers come from, forget that these villains already have an origin story, they got them from the explosion. In Smallville, it seemed like most of the villains (or misunderstoods) got their powers from “meteor rock” (Kryptonite) and that got to be annoying to me, but the show lasted many seasons (I didn’t watch all the seasons, I wavered for a while) so maybe that won’t be a problem. It’s not like they need to dumb it down for people, shows like Lost are way more complicated than characters’ origin stories (which aren’t even necessary) and people watched that for more than a few seasons.

On the other hand, this was the premise in Misfits (awesome TV series from the UK) and it never bothered me; the main characters got their powers from the storm and most of the shenanigans/villains that they got involved with were tied to the storm, but those characters didn’t have an already established backstory and with only six episodes per season, they didn’t have much time to establish anything necessary for continuity. Although, it’d be a stretch to say most the “good guys” in Misfits were “heroes”, “not villains” would be a more accurate description.

Regardless, I’ll watch this for more than a few episodes, I like the characters and it’ll be compelling watching TV based on what I loved as a kid!

FYI, The Flash will be on Tuesdays on the CW starting on October 7th, 2014.

Update:
I forgot to mention I liked all the detail in the poster (it’s actually what made me blog this in the first place). Check out all the buildings: On the right is Queen Consolidated (Green Arrow) Star Labs (important in DC universe and The Flash getting his powers + Big Belly Burger (in DC comics [maybe on TV too?]) and on the left is Amertek (Steel from comics worked there) + Kord Industries/Enterprises (Blue Beetle’s company).

I can’t figure out the logo on the tall building on the large building (slightly bigger than Queen Con.) in the back/left and it looks like it says “Star” but we have one of those already, I heard William Sadler will be playing Simon Stagg on this series so maybe it’s a Stagg building (it does look like 5-ish letters)? Anyone know what the Stagg logo looks like?

Also, the graffiti on the sidewalk says “Grodd Lives” (front right by the fire hydrant).

So I’m checking out flight prices for a trip, baggage fees are always interesting. The flights that I’m looking at allow me to take two 70 pound bags down for free, but only allow me to bring on 50 pounds back for free.

That’s a different carrier on the way back, but it’s all booked through the same airline. Even if I pay $40 for the second bag, I can still only bring back 100 pounds in my two bags.

I would never need more than 100 pounds, I’m just saying. Maxing out a pound bag on the way down is pretty easy for me, so I might need two on the way back since I only get 50 pounds for the first bag. But booking it that way looks like it’ll save me just over $100 so paying for the second bag certainly works out.

The airlines I was looking at weren’t too bad for luggage costs, but when you look at some airlines (Spirit) they give you no bags, how can you possibly go to another country for two weeks and not take any bags?!?

International flights used to always give me two bags (at least on the airlines I flew) so if I happened to go over the weight of the first bag I’d take a second smaller bag that actually fit in the first bag. I’d separate them to fly, but then combine them at the destination and I’d only roll around one bag. These days I’m taking a lot less books on a trip since I just take my Kindle with me although I still take one paperback to read during takeoff since they don’t like you to have electronics on; I know that rule is changing, but if I don’t know in advance for sure, I still have to be prepared…

Later: The more I think about it, 70 pounds seems to be a lot. Maybe 50 pounds is what used to be normal and I’m actually getting just getting extra in both bags on the way down?

More later: It turns out the two 70 pound bags on the way down were due to those seats being first/business class. I was shopping with points and didn’t really notice that it was that much of point difference.

So I’m pretty excited about the gas prices! I got it for $2.99 a gallon today!!! The funny thing is that gas only dropped a nickel in price, but it dropped under that $3.00 price that makes it seem so special. I probably only saved 50 cents on the ten gallons that I got.

But a few weeks ago gas dropped about a quarter a gallon, I’d have saved $2.50 on the same amount of gas, but it was nowhere near the same milestone (in my head).

It’s just kind of weird when you think about it. Do you feel the same way? Or are you happier just when it drops in price?

White House Down was a fun movie. Jamie Foxx as the president was interesting, most of the time he was pretty serious, but generally more playful than the president is portrayed in the movies (sometimes a little too playful).

Maggie Gyllenhaal was excellent, I always see her in movies and think she’s great, but I never realize that it’s her. From Donnie Darko to Secretary to Stranger Than Fiction to a Secret Service agent in this movie is a bit of a wide range of characters.

Channing Tatum was the hero, he was there applying to be a Secret Service agent who was pretty much told he didn’t have the right stuff. He took his daughter on a tour after his interview and that’s when the terrorists attacked and they got separated.

Joey King played the daughter and she was amazing!!! At some point The President happens to walk by and she gets him to answer a question for her video blog (sorry, “YouTube Channel”) and se pretty much floors him with her question. She played the voice of the “china girl” in Oz the Great and Powerful and she was great in that too, I remember specifically looking up later to see who did the voice (but I had no idea at the time).

This movie is exactly what you would imaging. It’s Die Hard but at the White House. Too many bullets and missiles for the hero to survive, but they manage to do it (of course!).

I have to say it was way more fun than I expected. Lots of action, some good one-liners, trying to figure out what’s real and what’s misdirection made for a great movie. Also, it was 2:10 long and it sure didn’t seem it, sometimes even amazing movies start seeming long after a while. I enjoyed it but after yesterday’s weird movie review (Upstream Color) it was certainly a welcome relief!

I’m not sure why I watched Upstream Color in the first place, I read a good review, some actor I liked in it or exactly what it was. But once I started watching it, I couldn’t stop. There are some spoilers in here, I say “some” because it’s so strange of a movie I’m not sure if it’s actually revealing anything…

There is some new street drug and it’s got something to do with some kind of roly-poly bug that’s killing some plants. Plus, this woman, Kris (played by Amy Seimetz) gets kidnapped and manipulated (controlled) into giving away all her money. This is all in the first few minutes. Most of the story is her trying to get her life back, she remembers (mostly) nothing of what happened to her.

Oh wait, I forgot about the pigs, (that’s really important) there’s some stuff transplanted from her that’s injected into some pigs and the guy who did all this watches the pig. Maybe he still watches her too, but it’s hard to tell if he’s watching her or the pig sometimes. Sometimes what your’e watching is what they’re experiencing in their heads and not what they are seeing with their eyes.

Then Kris meets a nice guy who seems like he’s dealt with some trauma in his life so he’s willing to be with her. I can’t write much more without giving everything away. I think I give away less than the synopsis’s do, but some give away too much.

The visuals are very interesting. Shot in a weird way that I liked. The dialog was reminiscent of (what I think of) as David Mamet dialog, except his is usually more overly dramatic and misleading (in a conversational confusing way), this is just as intense but it’s noir misdirecting, it’s just cRaZy.

It’s insane. Completely weird. But I was compelled to see how this was going to get get all wrapped up to make sense, I will say it gets wrapped up, but I’m not sure about the making sense. This wasn’t weird in a “eXistenZ” or “Brazil” kind of way, those movies made complete sense.

I’m sure I’m missing some of the symbolism or at least missing the recreational pharmaceuticals to help me understand everything.

FYI, there was no one in the cast that I remember from anywhere else, the same for producers/directors. But I know the few places I looked the movie up, it also recommended/suggested Moon and Primer, both weird but very interesting and/or excellent movies in my opinion.